


five times sven ulreich proved someone wrong

by ferrassie



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 09:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferrassie/pseuds/ferrassie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He keeps hearing it: "You're on your way to being promoted, Ulle. Next season, for sure."</p>
            </blockquote>





	five times sven ulreich proved someone wrong

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [valentinesplay](http://community.livejournal/valentinesplay) fic exchange.

**one** jens lehmann

 

He keeps hearing it: "You're on your way to being promoted, Ulle. Next season, for sure."

It's almost every week, now.

He's more consistent and his performances are better. Way better. He really starts to believe it, that it'll happen. That he'll eventually be first-choice. There's a tug in every nerve of his fingertips. Schäfer's on his way out and Stolz is set to return, but. 

Promotion to first-team and playing time. He can see it, he can hear it, he can taste it.

And then the club goes and signs Jens Lehmann.

 

He gets his promotion. Doesn't get any call-ups, though. Lehmann and Stolz. Pitch and bench. He comes to resent the squad-list, just a little bit. The names don't change and it's not likely that they're going to.

Goalkeepers, Sven thinks. Should have been a midfielder. Drop like flies, those ones.

So, he watches their home matches from the stands, like the fan that he is (because he truly is a fan of Stuttgart), and their away matches at the facility. 

He's never watched more football in his life, he's pretty sure, and he's definitely never catalogued the movements of any goalkeeper like Jens. Sven forgets to feel embarrassed about it even if Serdar calls it a compulsion, an obsession. 

Sven thinks he should fuck off (in the kindest way possible).

On-screen, Jens makes an impossible save, tipping the ball just over the crossbar. And Sven thinks, good. That's exactly what he wouldn't have been able to do. 

 

They rotate out during training. It's kind of nice, maybe, that Keller isn't sadistic enough to make them work goal side-by-side. He gets the least amount of time and it usually comes at the end of training, but he's fine with it, really.

Jens is kind of an asshole, though. Well, when he's working. Sven doesn't know what he was expecting. Alex pats him on back sympathetically. Pours water over his hair.

"It's just how he is, Ulle, you know."

Sven widens his eyes in a mock-incredulous way. "I hadn't noticed." One glove on, one glove off. Waterbottle under his arm.

Jens yells something unintelligible behind them. It sounds angry. Always angry. Alex laughs.

 

He gives Keller too much credit. 

Sven straps on his gloves and focuses ahead. Not on Jens and the goal beside him. Stuck firmly in the corner of his eye. Shamelessly staring. Jens, he doesn't really have any concept of shame. 

Sven takes a deep breath. Shakes his shoulders out.

They run their drills apart and, soon, he's forgotten about Jens completely; all the background noise he seems to supply. He's sore all over from falling down against the hard-packed grass. He wipes his nose with his wrist.

He can't help it, he's sort of compelled towards the ball, the one Thomas kicks from the far corner of Jens's penalty area and slices across the face of his goal. It's unwieldy, obviously wasn't meant for him, and Sven falls to the ground with the force of the save.

He sees a pair of beaten-up white boots when he opens his eyes. Jens stares down at him with something like interest – vague and fleeting, though it is – and makes no move to do anything but blink, hawk-like, at him.

"Not bad, kid." He sounds like he wasn't ever expecting to say that. 

Sven rolls onto his back, ball in his arms, and hopes that it doesn't open him up to being stepped on.

 

 **two** mario gomez

 

Mario, honestly, is insufferable. He's the particular kind of striker that Sven hates; the kind that thinks the goalkeeper's never up to their challenge. He still hasn't decided whether or not it's a good thing that they're usually stuck training together.

He bites at the corner of his mouth, dry and cracked. Faint taste of blood lingering as Mario stares back at him, surveying. Headband all askew. Pushed right up against his hairline. It's obnoxious, but it's not going to put him off. 

It's not, really.

"You ready?" Mario asks, voice stretching out over the pitch. Under the heat of the sun.

"Yeah, c'mon."

The ball moves with Mario's feet. Around his feet. He cuts in close to Sven, sure that he has him. Sven bears down on his knees quickly and his arms are almost around the ball until. Mario chips it over his shoulder, Sven curled up on the ground near his feet, and it rolls into the back of the net. 

Sven sighs.

Mario grins down at him. Hair sweat-plastered to his forehead. Still sticking up. 

"Almost," he says. Sings.

Sven stands up, brushing the grass off of his shorts, and fishes the ball out of the net. Rolls it to the tips of Mario's boots.

"Again."

Mario measures out sixteen yards. The top-right corner. Free-kick position. Sven watches the shift in Mario's body, how he distributes his weight to each foot, and then looks straight at him. Sven cracks his knuckles.

Mario puts the ball just beyond his reach.

"Again, c'mon."

Mario shrugs and sets up in the penalty area. Sven changes his tactic, moving up beside Mario and cleanly kicking the ball away from his feet. He gets a look (an eyebrow, actually) and Mario retrieves it easily. He comes back more insistently and finds the net again.

Again and again and again. It takes a little longer each time to get there, Sven makes sure of it. Mario's self-confidence slips into something more basal. More determined. Mario doesn't look like he's about to stop anytime soon.

Sven aches all over. With his back turned, he smiles to himself.

 

 **three** markus babbel

 

Jens retires. Sven allows himself a quick moment of _yes_ , of relief. Maybe. He's still very much on the bench – second to Stolz – but he's closer to what he spends all his time (effort and energy) working towards. He gets to see every match from the bench now. The perspective is jarring. 

Alex is self-conscious during training. He's very aware of where he is and who's around. He's almost endlessly fascinating. Sven watches from behind the rise of Babbel's shoulder, Alex completely oblivious and thinks, _I want to be standing there. In that goal. In that kit._

This isn't a revelation. This is football.

 

They're approaching the seventieth minute and Babbel turns towards him. Sees just his profile. Something twitches in Sven's stomach, his fingers, but it's for not. He knows that. He knows when goalkeepers get substituted.

The appearance of blood or bone. Sven doesn't wish that on anyone.

Babbel puts his hand on Sven's knee and he freezes. He's just leverage, though, and Babbel yells past him and at Cacau to get warming up. There's a flurry of movement behind him – shadows moving over his legs – and Babbel turns around. Back of his head.

Sven looks out towards Stolz again. Hopping around in net.

 

He makes it onto the squad-sheet for their Pokal match. It really isn't a surprise, but the start is. Shot of excitement and one of nervousness. Latter cooling the former. This means a lot and Sven knows it.

(Jens gave him some good advice: "Don't fuck it up, Ulreich. Ulle. Whatever." Sven takes it pretty seriously. Crazy as the bastard was on the pitch.)

He isn't one to ask questions because it never really goes anywhere. This isn't an exception. His relationship with Babbel is almost non-existent. So, gift horses. He keeps quiet. Takes his congratulations in stride.

 

He keeps a clean sheet during the match. Sven's always been better at coming up with answers.

 

 **four** christian träsch

 

They're having communication problems, Georg says, voice high and cute, from his spot on the pitch. Sven shakes his head; he can't decide whether he wants to punch Christian or kiss him. When he first met him, Sven didn't think he was the type of person to inspire that kind of response. He seems to know exactly what Sven's thinking and always comes up with a way to contradict it. Make it second best.

It's not that they don't get along. They do. They're too much alike and Christian's playfully stubborn while Sven's just plain stubborn. 

Like right now, for instance. The rest of the backline making fun of Sven's inability to get Christian positioned properly during corners.

Christian sidles up to him and, no, he needs to be at the post. Says as much, but Christian still drifts out into the penalty area. It's, like. Sven curls his hands into fists. Serdar laughs behind him.

The cross comes in and Sven watches sort of helplessly as Christian (of course) heads the ball out towards midfield.

Christian turns back towards him, smile on his face. Sven rolls his eyes. Pulls Christian to him and presses a kiss to his hair. Christian flinches. Gives him a surprised look.

Sven laughs.

 

 **five** serdar tasci

 

He's known Serdar for what feels like forever. It's inescapable. Goalkeeper and defender. The youth system. It makes sense, then, that Serdar always seems to fit perfectly into his line of sight. In front of him. Ahead of him.

Serdar's always ahead of him.

 

He gets called up to the first-team. That's okay; competition is tight for goalkeepers as it is and Serdar deserves it with his smart slide-tackles and his ability to read strikers and his awful hair.

Sven buys him a beer because he's always the first one to say _thanks, Ulle_. It sounds natural, too, when he says it. Pats him on the back and leaves Sven to get quietly drunk. 

He may or may not expound on Werder's stupid home kits. Blend in with the fucking pitch. 

Serdar's teenage smile on the edge of his consciousness.

 

He gets called up to the national team and Sven is genuinely happy for him. Sven's been doing his best, but the goal difference between Stuttgart and the very top of the table is off-putting, disconcerting. 

Too young. There are others. There are better. This is too easy.

Serdar laughs. Perfect teeth. "Can't wait to see you there, too, man."

Sven shrugs. "Yeah." 

 

Serdar makes captain. They need a change, a good one. The shuffling managers and training staff are starting to make Sven's head hurt. Serdar is a kind of fixed point, a focus. Well, for Sven. It all makes a lot of sense.

Serdar leans against him on the pitch, fingers on his shoulder as he stretches. "It doesn't bother you? You deserved it just as much as I did." As an afterthought: "Nothing ever seems to really bother you." 

His voice is all warm, though. The wind is, too, crawling over the backs of Sven's legs and through his socks. 

"I don't," he starts, but he's not the best at this. "I want those things, too, yeah. But I don't not want you to have them," He laughs to himself. More a sigh, really. "You know me." Between Lehmann and Europa matches and the ever-growing thing that is Stuttgart, he can't be much else.

Serdar looks at their feet. "Yeah, I know." But it sounds foreign, new.

Sven drops his leg down. Bends back the other one. Takes a deep breath. It's not entirely new.


End file.
